Pennsylvania Considering ‘Giving Teachers Guns’

“The Pennsylvania State Senate approved SB 383 in late June,” witf.org reports in their article Giving Teachers Guns. “The bill that would allow school district employees to bring guns to school. The bill is currently before the House Education committee.” Did you catch that? “Allow.” The presumption being, of course, that teachers don’t have a Second Amendment-protected right to keep and bear arms; it’s a “privilege” that might be bestowed upon educators by state government. Under the following conditions . . .

The text of the bill states “THE board of school directors in a school district may establish a policy permitting school personnel access to firearms in the buildings or on the grounds of a school.” Essentially, the district would draw up a firearms “safety plan” and submit it for approval with local law enforcement. The plan would be held confidentially under a 2008 “right-to-know” law.

Personnel would need a carry permit and proof of firearms training to bring a gun to school. They would also be required to pass a psychological screening. The bill has met opposition from the Education Law Center, the Pennsylvania State Education Association, and the National Rifle Association.

The NRA was behind the bill in its original form and revoked that support when State Senator Sharif Street (D-3rd) added the provisions for a safety plan and psych screening as amendments.

Given the inherent difficulty of pre-crime perp identification, I reckon potential pistol-packing PA teachers should take the test at the end of The Five Love Languages. Once a shrink knows a teacher’s primary love language, the mental health professional could regularly check to see if the teacher’s “love tank” is full.

Mine isn’t — when it comes to protecting our schools from crazies and terrorists.

The NRA’s 2013 National School Shield Report laid out a comprehensive approach for protecting our children from a violent attack on school grounds — including target hardening and best practices for dealing with assaults. Sad to say, it seems a safe bet that its words will come back to haunt educators who failed to heed its warnings and advice.

Meanwhile the belief that “allowing” teachers to exercise their gun rights in schools is a bad idea — or even that it should be the only idea — is dangerously delusional. If the Sandy Hook slaughter didn’t make the educational community wake up to the deadly danger that could walk through the school gate at any time, what will?

These teachers are forced to be prison wardens to the ghetto thugs that attend public schools. Look at all the asaults by these animals on Philadelphia teachers alone. I say give all the teachers ballistic armor and arm them. The Left wing scum that these democratic cities do nothing to protect these social servants. Shameful

While I can think of a few incidents with district teachers, none would justify lethal force. In fact, none of the few school shootings in PA were even in a City school. Nor is it correct or fair to label 200,000 students as thugs or animals. And while not oppossed to teachers being armed, not sure this bill is a good one.

A carry permit should be a prerequisite for a teaching position at any level, in every state. When my sons were school age, my wife and I could not accompany them every day, to protect them from crazies. It seems to me that my tax dollars should pay for instructors prepared to protect my children. Why this is not the case, I can’t even imagine.

Back at my old high school (with a majority student body of less than honorable upbringing) the board is going so far as to remove the security officers that carry guns and go through regular training because they were deemed dangerous to the school

Over the years they took the guns away deeming them dangerous, only a taser and pepper spray allowed.

Then a year or so later the taser was deemed potentially deadly, no longer allowed

Then two years later the pepper spray was deemed a legal liability. Then later that same year the security officer was told they aren’t allowed to make physical contact with students as that also was a legal liability.

Now they say the officers aren’t needed because of cost and potential source of danger to the students because of their ‘extensive weapons training’ and dangerous to the county because of legal liability.

Sorry for the novel but I thought the deep dive into utter stupidity my county school underwent was quite appropriate and matched much of our country

I’m ok with cops being in a school solely for the purpose of being an armed guard. When the police start getting involved in routine, non-criminal, disciplinary action I’ve got a huge problem with that.

Teachers are no bodyguards; their primary job is teaching, not standing armed guard around everyone’s kids.And if you limit teaching positions to those with carry permits and willing to carry every day, the amount of people meeting all your criteria (and being willing to work for the pay you’re offering) is likely to take a nosedive.

You want your kids in a school where every teacher is an armed guard? Feel free to pay for one. Most people won’t.

That being said, I do understand where you’re coming from. So I’m one of the teachers who do carry. But there’s a world of difference between being free to carry and being forced to carry.

Explicative deleted. There are teachers who are wusses and there are teachers who are warriors. I claim to to be the latter. Your generalization is false. My job is teaching, my responsibility to is to be vigilant, deal with problems. I do not surrender my natural God given rights at the schoolhouse door.

Okay, what my generalisation was again, and what’s false about it?
I never asked anyone to give up their gun rights at the schoolhouse door. In fact, you might notice the mention that I’m a teacher too and I do carry at school. However, I would never make a carry permit a prerequisite for a teaching position. If we do so, where’s the freedom to not arm oneself?

Sure, we might consider a decision to not arm oneself a foolish one. But people are free to make fools of themselves, aren’t they?

Besides, and I have to repeat myself here, I don’t think there’s enough people who are both suitable teachers and willing to carry to fill all teaching positions, not with current teacher’s pay.

Allowing teachers to carry and giving them guns is not the same thing and the title is a bit misleading. Also, there is no way our Bloomberg supported Governor is going to sign this bill. This bill was never meant to become law, it’s electioneering for fundraising.

Furthermore, in Pa there is ACT 235. That is the armed guard act. If you were to have teachers carrying as part of their job, they would have needed act235 certification. This bill would allow parts of act235 to be bypassed for teachers – currently act235 requires and MMPI and physical. To fail the MMPI you pretty much have be be totally nuts like as in schizophrenic. The PA State Police has an entire site dedicated to act235.

Last, if a teacher is employed by a district, the district has the right as the employer determine what the employee may or may not do on company time/property. This is well established case law in PA.

Here is the problem with your private property thinking – public schools in states are subject to the 14th Amendment and therefore the 2nd Amendment. The squirrels in black robes that “interpret” the Constitution just don’t want to give up their power to make stuff up. What happens in your house is your business; what happens in the public’s house is everybody’s business.

Pretty much every state (if not every state) allows for armed guards at schools. The simple way to have armed teachers at school is for the school to hire teachers to be armed guards.

The details of that arrangement could be exceedingly flexible and exceedingly simple. For example the school could pay a teacher $1 per year to be an armed guard during times of the teacher’s choosing. That means the teacher could be wearing his/her “armed guard” hat (and handgun) all the time or none of the time.

And if the school’s lawyers claim that those contracted “armed guards” need to have personal liability insurance at a cost of $400 per year, then the school can contract the teachers to be armed guards for $401 per year, etc.

Or the schools, in PA, can do what’s already allowed by law and create their own police department under act 501. Teachers should teach and protectors should protect. I really don’t want to depend on some 23 year old elementary ed grad to fight and not flight when the time comes nor do I want someone who is act235/120/501 certified teaching geography or math.

It positively tickles me that they want to add extra psychological screening. Apparently they have no problem sending young minds to be shaped for six hours a day, five days a week, by people who -in the judgement of certain legislators- haven’t yet demonstrated the kind of psychological stability required to not murder children.

I was thinking the same think. If the psychological test to handle a firearm shows them to be a potential harm to the students well then perhaps doesn’t that mean they shouldn’t be a teacher in the first place?

I have my own gun. I train regularly in the art of defensive pistol.
I don’t need to be “allowed” to take it to school to defend myself and my students.
I need my public statist employer to promise not to fire me for doing what I do every other day of my life.

I am a teacher in a public school in a state where, according to state law, teachers are permitted to carry. However, to my knowledge, no district has authorized teachers to do so. My district definitely does not allow teachers to have firearms on school premises.

I point this out to emphasise that the state law does nothing unless it requires the districts to allow teachers to possess firearms on school grounds.

AS far as “allow” they are still employees and when it comes to school property public authorities have many of the rights that any property owner would have to exclude certain activity on their property. Legally these questions (public employees 2nd amendment right vs state authority rights in school property) are not totally settled. So . . . totally agree that armed teachers are find if they want to do that, but it is not as clear as just citing the second amendment.

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